Alan Winters was the editor of the World Trade Review (WTR) from December 2008 to mid-2020. Launched in 2002 as a joint initiative of the WTO Secretariat and Cambridge University Press, the WTR has become the leading multidisciplinary journal in the field of international trade broadly defined. In the period during which Alan was editor of the journal, the number of issues grew from three to five, reflecting the significant increase in the number of quality submissions. The impact factor of the journal rose to 1.6 in 2020, an increase by 150%, above that of The World Economy, arguably the incumbent in the field when the WTR was created.

The degree to which firms make use of preferences in exporting to a partner country under a Free Trade Agreement will in good part depend on the restrictiveness of the underlying Rules of Origin (ROOs). Focusing on the post-Brexit Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) signed by the United Kingdom and the European Union, we examine how access to zero preferential tariffs has been impacted by ROOs. We do so by constructing a ROO restrictiveness index which varies across products. We find that the TCA has an overall moderate degree of ROO restrictiveness. Using product-country level trade data, we find that preference utilization under the TCA has risen over time, and exhibits a positive correlation at the product level with the EU Common External Tariff. Regressions on the determinants of preference utilization indicate that more restrictive ROOs are associated with a lower degree of preference utilization by UK firms in the EU market and this effect is more evident for consumption goods. Preference utilization is also driven by the size of the preferential margin, the size of the trade flows, and the extent to which exports are undertaken by producers as opposed to distributors, as well as the degree of firms’ engagement in value chains.

Globalization and robotics (globotics) are jointly transforming the world economy at an explosive pace. While much of the literature has focused on rich nations, the changes are quite likely to affect developing nations in important ways. The premise of the paper – which should be regarded as a thought-piece – is based on an extreme thought experiment. What does development look like when digital technology has rendered manufacturing jobless and many services freely traded? Our conclusion is that the service-led development path may become the norm rather than the exception; think India, not China. Since success in the service sector is based on quite different factors than success in manufacturing, development strategies and mindsets may have to change. This is an optimistic conclusion since it suggests that developing nations can directly export the source of their comparative advantage – low-cost labour – without having first to make goods with that labour.

We analyse the ‘indirect effects’ of Brexit on African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries’ exports that use the UK as a platform to access the EU market and vice versa. First, we use the EORA26 multi-region input–output database for 186 countries and 26 sectors to characterize the ACP domestic content embedded in bilateral trade between the UK and the EU. Second, we apply the GTAP-VA module to carry out a simulation of how the EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement will impinge on 121 countries and 65 products. The results suggest that while ‘indirect effects’ on ACP countries’ exports may exist, their economic magnitude is small in aggregate because ACP countries supply only small amounts of inputs used in UK–EU bilateral trade. Our simulations also show that these effects may be offset by the likely increase in ACP domestic content in exports because of TCA friction, mainly towards the UK.

This paper develops a Heckscher−Ohlin model in which the effects on production structure of endowments and changes in trade policies depend in a continuous way on a country's degree of openness to trade. Its main contribution is to show semi-formally how the introduction of product differentiation causes the elasticities of output with respect both to factor endowments and to sectoral trade barriers to vary with import penetration (the share of foreign firms in home markets) and export orientation (the share of foreign markets in home-firm sales).

Using trade policy to achieve foreign policy objectives, such as stable international relations, has a long history, from Kant to the founders of the GATT. Punishing enemies and rewarding ‘friends’ by granting or withholding market access is also not new, and sanctions or blockades are a venerable form of trade policy used as foreign policy. A more recent form is influencing the domestic policy of another country with non-commercial provisions in trade agreements. All these tools are based on linkage, on the assumption that a desired outcome can be achieved by interventions that would increase or decrease trade. The latest instance is so-called ‘friend-shoring’, which would in principle isolate enemies, although it will be difficult in practice and risks undermining multilateralism. The cost of these interventions is susceptible to economic analysis, even if the conclusion is that it is worth paying. Influenced by Alan Winters who referred to national security as a motivation for agriculture protection as a ‘so-called non-economic objective’ or SNO, I argue that using a trade policy tool for a foreign policy purpose as if there is no cost is a SNO job, an attempt to justify an intervention aimed at one objective by framing it as being valuable for another.

Over the past three decades, tariff protection to farmers has fallen and partly been replaced by domestic support, whilst support for farmers in some emerging economies has grown. Against that backdrop, this paper provides new estimates of national economic impacts of global agricultural tariffs and domestic supports. Using the latest global economy-wide GTAP (Global Trade Analysis Project) model calibrated to 2017, we simulate (a) the removal of food and agricultural domestic supports and agri-food tariffs and (b) the removal also of tariffs on imports of non-agricultural goods. We find that agricultural support policies are still an important part of the global welfare cost of all goods’ trade-restrictive policies (albeit only half as costly as in 2001), and tariffs still dominate the global welfare cost of all farm-support programs. That farm support could be re-instrumented to relieve natural resource and environmental stresses, boost food and nutrition security, and alleviate poverty and income inequality.

With a modified formalization of Heckscher–Ohlin theory as the basis of a novel econometric specification, this paper uses worldwide data over three decades to estimate how the effects of greater openness on industrialization vary among countries with differing endowments of land relative to labour. The results confirm the theoretical prediction that greater openness reduces manufactured output shares in land-abundant countries, while increasing them in land-scarce countries. The implications of these results for trade and development policy are debatable.

The recent change towards advanced technologies favors skill-intensive labor, motivating workers to upgrade their educational achievements to the tertiary level. However, workers in many developing countries cannot exploit the opportunity for premium wages in skill-intensive sectors owing to insufficient education facilities and resources. In such contexts, aid to education provides a capacity-building tool to eliminate the insufficiency but is often unsuccessful. Using theories of trade and human capital, this study argues that complementarity between education aid and skill-intensive manufactured exports creates a synergistic effect in upgrading educational achievements by rectifying both structural and incentive constraints. Through extensive data analysis, the result demonstrates that skill-intensive exports enhance aid's effectiveness in increasing tertiary school enrollment, whereas neither exports nor aid alone significantly affect enrollment. It further shows that the aid–export complementarity is less relevant in low-income countries, whereas skill-intensive exports alone promote education upgrading in developed countries via the Stolper–Samuelson effect.

This Article identifies the problems of an Appellate Mechanism for ISDS Tribunals in relation with its possible benefits. We propose the inclusion of certain design features to improve the working of an eventual Appellate Mechanism and help mitigate problems related to procedural, conflict resolution, and substantive concerns. We finish by identifying the most central problems with a possible Appellate Mechanism, which helps to narrow down options within the ongoing reform process at UNCITRAL. Overall, we illustrate how institutional choice is always contextual and that all institutional options are imperfect and subject to important trade-offs.

This paper examines the legal ramifications of using tariff flexibility arising from GATT unbound tariff lines or tariff overhangs under both WTO and preferential trade agreement (PTA) law when flexibility is exercised preferentially for PTA partners. Under WTO law, a WTO member that is a party to a PTA under GATT Article XXIV is required to use tariff flexibility on a non-discriminatory basis. However, PTA obligations including tariff elimination commitments and a standstill clause prohibit the WTO member from raising applied tariffs on imports from the PTA parties, thereby preventing the use of tariff flexibility on a non-discriminatory manner. In contrast, a WTO member entering into a PTA under the Enabling Clause may use tariff flexibility discriminatorily without violating WTO law. A WTO member has greater legal latitude in utilizing tariff flexibility if it forms a PTA under the Enabling Clause rather than under GATT Article XXIV. The discriminatory exercise of tariff flexibility by some WTO members in conformity with PTA obligations, but in violation of WTO law, is further evidence of the fragmentation of the world trading system, where WTO law is facing its limits.

To preserve the functioning of WTO dispute settlement following the blockage of the Appellate Body, a sub-set of WTO Members created the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA). In the wake of the first appeal award rendered under the MPIA, this contribution describes how the MPIA process works and lists some of the innovations that can be found in the first MPIA procedure. More innovations can be expected as arbitration under Article 25 of the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) (be it ad hoc or under the MPIA) can be adjusted and molded case-by-case by the disputing parties in their appeal arbitration agreements. In this sense, the MPIA can serve not only as an interim stop-gap to preserve WTO dispute settlement. It can also function as a laboratory to explore and test new ways of making WTO dispute settlement more efficient and in line with WTO Members' goals and interests: experimental reform by doing, rather than one-off, formal DSU review.

Failure to reestablish an effective World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement procedure, stop the erosion of multilateral rules and end the China–US trade war causes capitals to rethink trade policy. One response is to redouble efforts to strike trade agreements with major trading partners. Already countries accounting for about 78% of world Gross Domestic Product (GDP) are members of mega-regional agreements, and based on our computations, preferential trade agreements (PTAs) will soon cover about two-thirds of world trade. Can PTAs replace a fading WTO or mitigate its effects? Amid deepening geopolitical rifts, how will trade relations among China, the EU, and the US, each a hegemon in their respective regions, evolve, and what will be the impact on smaller economies? In short, how will a trading system based increasingly on PTAs and weak multilateral rules look, and how will nations adapt? Absent reforms, the trading system is likely to fragment progressively into regional blocks organized around the hegemons. Trade within the regional blocks, mainly conducted under a mega-regional agreement, will likely remain quite open and predictable, but without strict multilateral rules and where PTAs are absent (as they are among the hegemons), interregional trade relations will become increasingly uncertain and unstable.

This paper offers a comprehensive study of the jurisprudence on the ‘as a result of unforeseen developments’ test under the WTO's safeguards (SG) rules. It contributes to the existing scholarship by making three fresh arguments. First, the Appellate Body's decision to ‘revive’ this test as a prerequisite for the application of SG measures is not necessarily incompatible with the drafting record of the SG Agreement, even though this agreement does not make explicit reference to the test. Second, the test is not excessively difficult to satisfy under the standard of review established by case law, even though governments failed to pass it in almost all SG disputes to date. Third, in sharp contrast, the recent US–Safeguard Measure on PV Products decision took a strikingly more deferential approach which fell far short of the established standard of review, leading to the first and only decision in which the test was found to be satisfied. This decision has arguably created a new standard which could lead to abuse of SG measures and damage to the dispute settlement system and hence should be avoided in future disputes.

This article considers the past, present, and future of domestic investment laws. Its focus is on the ‘facilitative’ investment law, which aims to encourage foreign investment by granting substantive protections to foreign investors and consent to international arbitration over disputes with foreign investors. The article first contends that states had independent reasons to enact such facilitative investment laws alongside investment treaties, even though investment treaties perform very similar functions. Secondly, the article argues that investment laws can be characterized either as unilaterally assumed international obligations of states or simply as domestic laws of states, with differing consequences under each characterization. Thirdly, the article proposes four possible futures for facilitative investment laws: contamination, continuation, compromise, and contestation.

In today's data-driven economy, data have been dubbed as the new oil. Hence, a close relationship is shared between the increasing amounts of international investments and the increasing volumes of cross-border data flows. The aim of this article is to discuss the legal aspects of the new data paradigm in the international economy and place this discussion in the larger framework of globalization and the Liberal International Order. The central thesis of the article revolves around the crucial role played by domestic laws in the fragmentation of international investment law. The article further discusses the interplay between national and international legal landscapes and how the changing nature of the Liberal International Order is affecting the flow of data across borders. In this context, it also discusses the issues that are presented by a lack of any comprehensive international framework governing Cross-Border Data Flows. The need to update existing agreements and laws in order to factor in digital investment is also highlighted.

International Economic Law (IEL) has largely regulated cross-border trade and investment in the post-WWII world. IEL has become an important part of the Liberal International Order that prescribes a set of rule-based relationships for international cooperation based on political liberalism, economic liberalism, and liberal internationalism. However, economic globalization has witnessed a relative decline, especially after the 2008 global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. This form of ‘de-globalization’ challenges the assumptions upon which modern IEL is premised. This introductory article to the special issue on ‘Domestic Investment Laws and International Economic Law in the Liberal International Order’ explains how domestic law has started playing an increasingly important role in regulating foreign investment. Often overlooked instruments such as Domestic Investment Laws, Investment Screening Mechanisms, and Investment Promotion Agencies are now important tools in promoting or restricting foreign investment flows. Expanding on this premise, the article examines the transition from international to domestic in the Liberal International Order with a focus on Domestic Investment Laws. The move to domestic law does not signal a new era of economic isolation for States. Instead, it presents an effort to achieve similar ends of attracting foreign investors using different means while exercising more control over foreign investment.

Domestic Investment Laws (DILs), a prominent tool of contemporary unilateral International Economic Law (IEL) in the context of the Liberal International Order (LIO), consistently provide for investment incentives as a key aspect of domestic industrial policies geared to influence investment location decisions. The various types of investment incentives include fiscal measures to attract investment, direct subsidies, and other regulatory measures aimed at creating favorable administrative and regulatory conditions for investment. This article analyzes how the provisions of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreements contain basic disciplines and set limitations for the distortive effects of investment incentives. It is argued that the relevance of WTO law for domestic investment incentives should not be under-stated; rather, DILs providing investment incentives should be treated as a limited exception to the ongoing move from international to domestic in the era of the LIO.

Under the Liberal International Order (LIO) of the post-WWII years, foreign investment protection was meant to be granted by international law and institutions. But current economic de-globalization is giving way to institutional and legal de-globalization. Domestic laws relating to foreign investment, especially in the form of Domestic Investment Laws, are taking over International Investment Agreements as the standard means of regulating cross-border trade and investment flows. The article compares substantive and procedural standards of investor protection in international and domestic investment law, as well as old and new Domestic Investment Laws, with a focus on non-discrimination and dispute settlement. The move to domestic law in IEL does not always signify a trend for most states to isolate themselves from the international economy. Rather, it is often an effort to achieve similar ends as those of the LIO but using different means. The article discusses an alternative political economy framework for an international (economic) law of ends, the cornerstone of which is the right to hospitality.

Can supranational actors influence domestic policy? In this article, we study how international organizations have sought to shape the contents of domestic laws aimed at protecting foreign investment. Traditionally, the influence of international organizations on public policy has been assumed to run through loan conditionalities. We build on a recent strand of literature indicating that international organizations can also influence public policy through technical assistance. Empirically, we present a cross-sectional mapping of the protection that states offer foreign investors in domestic investment laws, and a mapping of the advisory activities of the three main organizations offering technical assistance on foreign investment laws: the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the World Bank. We find that there are significant variations in protection offered under domestic investment laws, and variation in international organizations’ technical assistance over time and across organizations. To explore technical assistance as a causal mechanism for influence on public policy more closely in this field, we conduct a case study of the development of domestic investment legislation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.